ABSTRACT
Images of street violence during the WTO Conference and the shattered window panes which marked the World Economic Forum in Davos are not the only clear signs that the terms ‘free trade’ and ‘globalization’ have gradually become embattled concepts, symbolic of an erosion of social standards, an increase in global differentials between ‘rich and poor’, a problematic readjustment of consumer lifestyles and for many, not least, contributory causes of worldwide environmental destruction. The two phenomena are also closely connected. Thus, along with the absolute and relative fall in the significance of transportation costs, the removal of trade barriers has been the other principal factor which has accelerated globalization, made it easier to gain access to natural resources worldwide and, by creating additional growth impulses, increased resource consumption and hence also raised emissions. So the processes of globalization also encroach into the field of tension between growth and the environment.
